I tend to think of Harry Connick Jr. as a comely crooner and erstwhile movie actor and then, every once in awhile, something from his CD "Other Hours" will come up from the Party Shuffle playlist in iTunes or on one of my iPods and I'll think, "Boy, what advanced hard bop band with avant-garde leanings is playing that." Sure enough, it's a cut from "Other Hours." (OK, I don't really think that way, but you get the idea.)
So I was excited when "Occasion," another disk on which Harry sings not a word and confines himself to piano playing, came out recently on the Marsalis Music label featuring Connick in a series of duets with the label's head dude saxophonist Branford Marsalis, a favorite of mine and I think one of the best and most inventive current sax players, approaching the status of a Wayne Shorter.
The disk is maybe not as exciting as I expected, but it's good with music ranging from an updated New Orleans dance hall sound to the avant-garde, although more atmospheric, moody, even noirish than foot tapping in sum. There are plenty of classical overtones as well. I'd put it somewhere between "People Time," the Stan Getz and Kenny Barron duet collection from Gitanes and Verve, and "Bobo Stenson/Lennart Aberg" from Amigo. The two Swedes, as you can imagine, are a bit more on the outside than Getz and Barron, who play more to the inside but by no means in a boring fashion. "People Time" may be Getz's best stuff. "Occasion" gives you the same kind of opportunity to listen to Marsalis and Connick in detail and that makes it worth the price of admission. I just wish there were a few more jaunty tunes like "Good to be Home" on it. I highly recommend "Other Hours," which has Harry playing piano in an adventurous quartet. Charles "Ned" Goold on tenor sax is a big-time player.
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